If the app isn't doing anything, Apple should automatically remove it from the list of apps.

If the app isnt doing anything it should be removed from a list of recent apps? Does that really make sense to you?

If you have a problem with FAS then simply dont use it, I dont. I find fault with the speed compared to a single home button click and accessing an app which are all on the first page. The most I need is 3 presses (Home Button, the folder it resides, the app), whilst FAS is Home Button (2x), then the app, which may or may not require sliding the ribbon.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

The app is there because it has been recently opened. The whole point of FAS is to quickly restart an app that you were recently using. How is the system supposed to know when or if you are going to return to a recently open app?

Apps are removed from their frozen state if the system begins to run out of memory.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

It's effing ugly, whether the apps are "running" or not. It's lazy programming on Apple's part. If the app isn't doing anything, Apple should automatically remove it from the list of apps.

No. iOS does not do multitasking. I multitask on my Droid a lot. It's good to preserve clear definitions for terms.

Well, then you don't know what you're talking about. The Android multi-tasking system is very similar to iOS and neither qualify as "true multi-tasking" in the sense of a desktop computer. In the real world and to normal folks, they are both still "multi-tasking" however.

I'm guessing you are one of those young, male, Android fans that I referred to earlier who can't see the forest for the trees.

The apps in the list are suspended or running depending on their background task functionality.

Skype = running
Internet Radio = running
Apple apps = running

Other apps are suspended and open to the last used screen not a default new launch state.

Also Facebook is running for notifications even when it is not in the list.

I know you know that.

This isnt hard. Just because its in FAS it does not mean its running in the background. ONLY APPS THAT HAVE THE BACKGROUNDING APIS ADDED ARE EVER RUNNING IN THE BACKGROUND.

Removing an app from FAS will kill its process(es) if its running in the background, but being in FAS doesnt mean its running in the background. This was explained well a year ago so why people still think FAS is a list of running apps should not be happening.

Again, I encourage you people to do a little test. Start Skype, start Pandora, start iPod or whatever. Now check FAS to see the list of the last opened apps. Now power cycle your device. Now go back into FAS. ALL THOSE APPS WILL BE IN THERE THE WAY THEY WERE BEFORE YOU TURNED IT OFF YET THOSE APPS WILL NOT RUNNING. Can you guess why?

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Obviously they do not own every possible combination of flicking gesture. Nowhere in iOS do you flick apps or pages off of the screen to erase them or move them somewhere else.

They come up with new flicking gestures for new functions that iOS did not have before. They don't introduce flicking gestures that break or conflict with previous interface guidelines. This is especially crucial because developers are following Apple's interface guidelines in the functionality of their apps.

Flicking left, right, up, down are certainly supported gestures by Apple. Yes, I agree that they don't currently use these gestures for app management. That's the point. I think they should. Would it introduce something new? Yes, of course. Would it mean that users would have to re-learn how to manage apps? Probably. Personally, I think if a user is smart enough to understand that they're managing background apps (or fast-switching-apps), then they're smart enough to figure out a new interface. The ones that would get confused by a new interface are the ones that don't check on their background apps today.

As to "interface guidelines", Apple breaks them whenever it suits them. Ever since they tossed the Human Interface Guidelines handbook 10 or 12 years ago, they do whatever they damn well want when they want. Developers follow Apple's trends or they get left behind. And personally, I don't see how a system wide interface gesture would affect any application at all. That's an iOS function. An app just needs to know when it's switched in and out. Not what gesture is used to perform that task.

... but being in FAS doesnt mean its running in the background. This was explained well a year ago so why people still think FAS is a list of running apps should not be happening.

I think this is the point of this thread. If it's not "running", it shouldn't be listed with those that are. This is about the human interface. It's clutter. Get rid of it if its not actively doing something.

The fact you can't tell what's going on in the windows is exactly why I stopped using the expose add-on I found in cydia. I used it for about a week before I went back to the normal app switching tray.

Over all point being I see no reason for Apple to break its interface rules for the webOS management system. Apple will improve its management system within how iOS current functions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

As to "interface guidelines", Apple breaks them whenever it suits them. Ever since they tossed the Human Interface Guidelines handbook 10 or 12 years ago, they do whatever they damn well want when they want. Developers follow Apple's trends or they get left behind. And personally, I don't see how a system wide interface gesture would affect any application at all. That's an iOS function. An app just needs to know when it's switched in and out. Not what gesture is used to perform that task.

How is it clutter if its in a separate tray that you have to purposefully open? If you don't like the FAS tray you do not have to use it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

I think this is the point of this thread. If it's not "running", it shouldn't be listed with those that are. This is about the human interface. It's clutter. Get rid of it if its not actively doing something.

Again, I encourage you people to do a little test. Start Skype, start Pandora, start iPod or whatever. Now check FAS to see the list of the last opened apps. Now power cycle your device. Now go back into FAS. ALL THOSE APPS WILL BE IN THERE THE WAY THEY WERE BEFORE YOU TURNED IT OFF YET THOSE APPS WILL NOT RUNNING. Can you guess why?

They are still in there because when you restart your device the apps that have suspended states registered with the OS are put back in the list. That may be another way of thinking about the same thing but it is not that they were left in the list persistent over the restart, they were put back in the list after the restart. Some will be in various states not all are suspended. For example if Skype is in the list it can receive calls, so it definitely had to start back up after the power recycle.

In all fairness, the multi-tasking and the app switching are integrated together both in the current implementation and in this one.

I'm not sure there is any good reason (unless one is an Android fan and under the age of 15 or so), to keep harping on what 'true" multi-tasking is (versus app switching), or which of the various implementations of multi-tasking on mobile OS's is "really" multi-tasking. Can't we just agree that multi-tasking is just using more than one program at a time and that all the various implementations we see are "multi-tasking" in that sense?

Personally, the only thing I like about this implementation is that it leaves the "left-swipe from the home screen" open for other uses.

If this is in fact an early discarded multi-tasking implementation, I would guess the reason it didn't make the cut was that the little "windows" onto the apps are mostly blank and mostly don't give you a good idea of what program they are associated with or what will happen when you delete them. The current system leaves no doubt at all as to what's going on. You see a list of running apps, and you can delete them.

My biggest wish is for them to implement the four/five finger multi-tasking gestures, at least for the iPad. Double-clicking the home button is problematic and fails a lot.

I don't see any good reason why they shouldn't implement them like, yesterday.

Oh yea! Try using a chat messaging app like Yahoo Messenger and get frustrated with the countless pop up messages while using another app. Truth is that push notifications without real multitasking is a lame attempt by Apple.

I think this is the point of this thread. If it's not "running", it shouldn't be listed with those that are. This is about the human interface. It's clutter. Get rid of it if its not actively doing something.

Its a FAST App Switcher. The word Fast is key. Another term for it is Recent Items. As stated, I dont use FAS because I dont think its faster, but I also dont use the Recent Items lists throughout Mac OS.

It also a secondary function of removing apps from that list and if they are running it will kill their processes but this is not why FAS exists. You have misinterpreted what it does and what it represents.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

They are still in there because when you restart your device the apps that have suspended states registered with the OS are put back in the list. That may be another way of thinking about the same thing but it is not that they were left in the list persistent over the restart, they were put back in the list after the restart. Some will be in various states not all are suspended. For example if Skype is in the list it can receive calls, so it definitely had to start back up after the power recycle.

For fucks sake!

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

The apps in the list are suspended or running depending on their background task functionality.

Skype = running
Internet Radio = running
Apple apps = running

Other apps are suspended and open to the last used screen not a default new launch state.

Also Facebook is running for notifications even when it is not in the list.

I know you know that.

Just so you know, Skype is not open. When you close Skype, it tells iOS to listen in on a port for incoming "calls", when iOS gets an incoming message, it then launches Skype, which then does it's thing. Even when you close Skype from the tray, iOS will be listening to incoming messages.

You are right about the suspending (in most cases) unless it's assigned to do something: The App is allowed to finish that task then suspend itself or if the task takes too long or the app doesn't suspend itself, iOS will suspend it for it.

However, you are wrong about Facebook. It is not running in the background for notifications. It uses the iOS push messaging framework, which listens for incoming push notifications. When iOS hears a message coming in, it receives small bits of info about what app it belongs to, a short message, and what to do when the user clicks "view". iOS then displays it on the screen (and updates the app badge and/or plays a noise). When you click "view" it launches Facebook and then Facebook has to check manually to see the update (since iOS was in control of the message, not the actual FB app). Push notifications are never triggered by the app because the app is not running.

There are other ways to multitask without the app actually running, even though it seems like the app is running. Like I said before, that is the point. In most cases, apps do not need to fully run in the background. Take a look at the multitasking APIs built into iOS and you'll understand it more.

How is it clutter if its in a separate tray that you have to purposefully open? If you don't like the FAS tray you do not have to use it.

I love that true mulitasking is using no intelligent controls to manage apps.

Take the AnandTech review of PlayBook. They desperately want to find a tablet that can compete with the iPad yet they had this to say:

Quote:

Despite the PlayBook having a 1GB of LP-DDR2 memory on-board, this thing can run out of memory quickly - particularly when multitasking with BlackBerry Bridge apps. If you've got a web page loaded in the Bridge Browser, you'll only be able to open a maximum of three other Bridge apps before you run out of memory.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Something is going on with those frozen apps because any time I have a problem with an app not starting up properly or freezing up, all I have to do is go into the multitasking UI and kill the apps. After that, whatever app was giving me a problem works fine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TenoBell

The app is there because it has been recently opened. The whole point of FAS is to quickly restart an app that you were recently using. How is the system supposed to know when or if you are going to return to a recently open app?

Apps are removed from their frozen state if the system begins to run out of memory.

... or if you "close" them in the FAS bar.

If there is an inconsistency in the frozen state, causing them to not restart properly, removing the app from the FAS list, thus removing its state information, can often allow it to restart properly, if it's having trouble. It's part of the illusion that the apps are still running that when the state information is discarded, the app appears to "restart" rather than "resume". Sometimes you may notice this with an app that you didn't "close", which is an indication that the system silently discarded the state information because it was running out of memory.

Over all point being I see no reason for Apple to break its interface rules for the webOS management system. Apple will improve its management system within how iOS current functions.

And will probably continue with an inferior system.

And again, to "break" the interface rules, one must have rules that mean something. They only mean something to Apple for as long as they want them to mean something. If they think they have something better, they will quite willingly break the old ones.

It is not running in the background for notifications. It uses the iOS push messaging framework, which listens for incoming push notifications. When iOS hears a message coming in, it receives small bits of info about what app it belongs to, a short message, and what to do when the user clicks "view". iOS then displays it on the screen (and updates the app badge and/or plays a noise). When you click "view" it launches Facebook and then Facebook has to check manually to see the update (since iOS was in control of the message, not the actual FB app). Push notifications are never triggered by the app because the app is not running.

Remember when PNS was vilified back in iOS 3.0, 2 years ago. I think every mobile OS has adopted this feature to cut down on resource overhead.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

JYou are right about the suspending (in most cases) unless it's assigned to do something: The App is allowed to finish that task then suspend itself or if the task takes too long or the app doesn't suspend itself, iOS will suspend it for it.

The problem is that every time I check my wife's iPhone, she's got 3 dozen apps listed in the FAS ribbon. None of them seem to go away on their own. Or at least there's so many that don't, that I don't notice the ones that do.

The multitasking API's have little to do with FAS listing. Continuing your Skype example. You get to choose how long Skype stays open to receive calls. It can stay open for a short amount of time or stay open indefinitely. That has nothing to do with its being listed in the FAS.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mstone

For example if Skype is in the list it can receive calls, so it definitely had to start back up after the power recycle.

The problem is that every time I check my wife's iPhone, she's got 3 dozen apps listed in the FAS ribbon. None of them seem to go away on their own. Or at least there's so many that don't, that I don't notice the ones that do.

Seriously?! What part aren’t you getting? They aren’t going to go away. They are a list of the apps that were last opened. They are listed from left to right in the order you last opened them, which re-accessed apps being placed at the front of the list. It will have every single app you’ve ever opened in the list. LIST LIST LIST, not apps using RAM RAM RAM.

it’s a problem because you’ve made it a problem thinking all these apps are slowing down the device. There is no reason to remove any of these items unless you anal or you have a particular actual running app.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

The problem is that every time I check my wife's iPhone, she's got 3 dozen apps listed in the FAS ribbon. None of them seem to go away on their own. Or at least there's so many that don't, that I don't notice the ones that do.

Just because they exist in the FAS ribbon does not mean that they are running.
When you close apps they are either frozen or completely closed and if you're using enough apps are once, frozen apps will be automatically completely closed by iOS (to save memory for active applications).

Now, if iOS removed completely closed apps from the FAS bar, it wouldn't be very fast. You would need to:
1: Open the FAS
2: Scroll to find it
3: Notice it's not there then have to go home and launch it that way.

The FAS holds applications that aren't running anymore so you don't have to do step 3.

I have read the programmer reference where it gives examples and details on how to save your app's state and this what I understand from that documentation. ...

Saving your app's state and FAS saving its state are two different things.

My understanding, which may not be entirely accurate, is that for the FAS state saving to take place, all you have to do is compile your app with FAS support. But, you still need to save your app's state when it's told it's about to be terminated, if you want to be able to reliably restore your state in case the system discards the FAS state info.

When you save your state, it's like information for your app to use for initialization. When FAS saves the state, I believe it's sort of like how UI elements are saved in a nib file, and FAS uses that info to put the app back to the point it was at when it terminated it, like UI elements are loaded from a nib file.

The multitasking API's have little to do with FAS listing. Continuing your Skype example. You get to choose how long Skype stays open to receive calls. It can stay open for a short amount of time or stay open indefinitely. That has nothing to do with its being listed in the FAS.

I think I've seen something similar with the Weather Channel app. It's not running in FAS, but I still see the occasional notification message about severe weather in my area.

Just because they exist in the FAS ribbon does not mean that they are running.
When you close apps they are either frozen or completely closed and if you're using enough apps are once, frozen apps will be automatically completely closed by iOS (to save memory for active applications).

Now, if iOS removed completely closed apps from the FAS bar, it wouldn't be very fast. You would need to:
1: Open the FAS
2: Scroll to find it
3: Notice it's not there then have to go home and launch it that way.

The FAS holds applications that aren't running anymore so you don't have to do step 3.

First there's nothing fast about FAS. It's more clicks, more swipes, more taps than just launching the application from the desktop. At least in my experience.

Yes, I do understand that apps listed in the FAS are not necessarily running. My response was to a different message that stated that iOS would automatically remove apps from FAS if they weren't running. Not sure under what conditions this is performed. Memory usage? My reply was that I continue to see a large number of non-running apps in the FAS. Why weren't they scavenged? And personally, I don't subscribe to the "just ignore them" meme.

Saving your app's state and FAS saving its state are two different things.

By FAS saving I'm assuming that you mean freezing your application.
Saving your apps state is something that must be manually done by an app when the user quits it. iOS will then freeze your application (this is done with all apps written with the iOS4 sdk). When relaunched, iOS will unfreeze the app IF the memory the app used was not removed.

However, if

the user quits the app from FAS or

the system needs more memory (for itself or another app)

The application's frozen memory will be removed and when you resume an app, the app must manually load the state is saved itself in previously.

FAS is weird because it handles frozen memory, but not the other multitasking APIs. It just gives you the appearance of handling it all because most people do not understand that each type of multitasking is handled differently.

Nothing runs in FAS. its a list of all apps in the order you last opened them. Some might still have active processes but they arent running in the background because they are listed in FAS.

Youre going to understand this if I have to track you down and beat you with discarded Zunes.

Go find some Zunes, I'm apparently going to need you to apply them. If the FAS is nothing more than a list of the last used apps, then it's just stupid. Why would I care? I only see a purpose if its to manage apps that are actively running in the background - whatever "running" may be defined as. If an app isn't doing anything, it should not be listed in the FAS. I don't understand Apple's reasoning for throwing everything in the FAS. Are programmers deliberately choosing the (for lack of a better term) FAS option when compiling their apps even if they don't actually perform any background functions? So that apps don't save their state and terminate when the user clicks the home button?

My reply was that I continue to see a large number of non-running apps in the FAS. Why weren't they scavenged? And personally, I don't subscribe to the "just ignore them" meme.

Why would they be scavenged? Its a list of Recent Items. That what its for. Why would your Recent Items selectively be edited by the system when the point is to find an app you may not recall the name of and could be located on any of 9 pages and in any number of folders?

Why is this so hard to wrap your head around. Its not list of background apps!!!!

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Go find some Zunes, I'm apparently going to need you to apply them. If the FAS is nothing more than a list of the last used apps, then it's just stupid. Why would I care? I only see a purpose if its to manage apps that are actively running in the background - whatever "running" may be defined as. If an app isn't doing anything, it should not be listed in the FAS. I don't understand Apple's reasoning for throwing everything in the FAS. Are programmers deliberately choosing the (for lack of a better term) FAS option when compiling their apps even if they don't actually perform any background functions? So that apps don't save their state and terminate when the user clicks the home button?

Devs dont have anything to do with FAS the same way that devs have nothing to do with  » Recent Items in Mac OS. Its a list generated by the system as you access items. In iOS everything is an app, even Phone, so there is no categorizing the list into sections.

If you dont like FAS then stop using it. Its that simple. Do you use all the Recent Items lists in Mac OS? Are you up in arms that it keeps a list of items youve recently opened? Why or why not?

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Why would they be scavenged? Its a list of Recent Items. That what its for. Why would your Recent Items selectively be edited by the system when the point is to find an app you may not recall the name of and could be located on any of 9 pages and in any number of folders?

Why is this so hard to wrap your head around. Its not list of background apps!!!!

Why the hell would I want or need a list of recently used apps? The FAS is decidedly more than just a list of recently used apps. It's a way of managing apps that deliberately put themselves into the background. If they're not doing anything, they are apparently suspended. I assume the point is that they can be quickly resuscitated with some part of their memory footprint intact. I assume this is the part that's supposed to be faster than just restarting the app from the desktop. Personally, I haven't found any apps that this seems particularly useful, so I find this to be a poor programming choice. If the program doesn't need to run any background process, than it should simply save its own state and terminate itself, instead of putting itself in the background - to be suspended later.

Devs don’t have anything to do with FAS the same way that devs have nothing to do with  » Recent Items in Mac OS. It’s a list generated by the system as you access items. In iOS everything is an app, even Phone, so there is no categorizing the list into sections.

If you don’t like FAS then stop using it. It’s that simple. Do you use all the Recent Items lists in Mac OS? Are you up in arms that it keeps a list of items you’ve recently opened? Why or why not?

The recent items in the Apple menu on MacOS X does not consume any memory space. I believe that apps listed in the FAS do still consume some part of memory - unless that memory is later needed for something else. I do see a difference between the two functions you describe. Yes, you're correct in that I can simply ignore the apps listed in the FAS ribbon. But it just seems to ugly that it's like a bug under my skin. I can't stop thinking about how poorly implemented this is.

If you don’t like FAS then stop using it. It’s that simple. Do you use all the Recent Items lists in Mac OS?

Not the same thing. In OS X the app needs to be running for the recent items to be active and those are documents not a list of recent applications. There is more than one situation that puts an app icon in the list on iOS. It is not an either or situation. An app that is in the tray is either running, suspended, finishing a task or not running, as in lost it's memory and state. The tray serves all of those situations not just a list of previously run applications.

Come on! It’s been a year since it’s been introduced. You guys should know that FAS is not a list of running apps.

So basicly, the multitasking bar contains a list of apps that may or may not be running... wow, what a great interface... its nothing short of garbage.

And like it or not those "frozen" apps do make other running apps crash has it happened to me over and over again with multiple apps. The only thing that worked to fixed lots of crashing apps was to kill all the apps in the multitask bar.

Apple really need to sort out the multitasking mess. Currently Android is much better at handling multitasking.